As a matter of course, Bertie’s Nellie quietly gathered the reins of
management into her own hands, and as a matter of course, Jimmy’s Nellie
indulged in ear-splitting continuous protest, and Brown of the, Bulls
expressed himself as satisfied, so far, with the entertaining powers of
the homestead.
As a matter of course, we left the servant problem to work out its own
solution, and, also as a matter of course, the Sanguine Scot was full of
plans for the future but particularly bubbling over with the news that
he had secured Tam-o’-Shanter for a partner in the brumby venture.
“He’ll be along in a few days,” he explained, confident that he was “in
luck this time all right,” and remembering Tam among the horses at the
Katherine, we congratulated him.
As a matter of course, our conversation was all of brumbies, and Mac was
also convinced that “when you reckoned everything up there was a good
thing in it.”
“Of course it’ll take a bit of jumping round,” he agreed. But the Wet
was to be devoted to the building of a strong holding-yard, a “trap,”
and a “wing,” so as to be able to get going directly the Wet lifted; and
knowing the run well, and the extent of the brumby mobs on it, Mac then
and there set to work to calculate the “sized mob” that could be “got
together after the Wet,” listening with interest to the account of our
brumby encounters out east.
But long before we had done with brumbies Cheon was announcing dinner in
his own peculiar way.
“Din-ner! Mis-sus! Boss! All about!” he chanted, standing in the open
doorway nearest to us; and as we responded to his call, he held the door
of the dining-net and glided into the details of his menu: “Veg-e-table
Soooup!” he sang: “Ro-oast Bee-ef! Pee-es! Bee-ens! Too-mar-toos! Mar-
row!” and listening, we felt Brown of the Bulls was being right royally
welcomed with as many vegetables as were good for him. But the sweets
shrank into a simple “bakee custard!”
“This is what you might call style!” Mac and Brown of the Bulls
declared, as Cheon waved them to seats with the air of an Emperor, and
for two courses the dinner went forward according to its menu, but at
the third course tinned peaches had usurped the place of the “bakee
custard.”
Every one looked surprised, but, being of the bush-folk, accepted
peaches and cream without comment, until Cheon, seeing the surprise, and
feeling an explanation was due—anyway to the missus—bent over her and
whispered in a hoarse aside. “Pussy cat been tuck-out custard.”
For a moment the bushmen bent over their plates, intent on peaches and
cream; but there is a limit to even a bushman’s dignity, and with a
choking gulp Mac exploded, and Brown of the Bulls joining in with a roar
dragged down the Maluka’s self-control; and as Cheon reiterated: “What
name all about laugh, missus,” chuckled in sympathy himself. Brown of
the Bulls pulled himself together for a moment, once more to assure us
that he was “Satisfied so far.”
But the day’s entertainment was only just beginning for after comparing
weights and heights, Mac, Jack, Dan and Brown of the Bulls, entered into
a trial of strength, and a heavy rail having been brought down from the
stackyard, the “caber” was tossed before an enthusiastic company. The
homestead thoroughfare was the arena and around it stood or sat the
onlookers: the Quarters travellers, Happy Dick, some of the Line Party,
the Maluka, the missus, and others, and as the caber pitched and tossed,
Cheon came and went, cheering every throw lustily with charming
impartiality, beating up a frothy cake mixture the while, until,
finally, the cakes being in the oven, he was drawn, with others, into
the competition.
A very jaunty, confident Cheon entered the lists, but a very surprised,
chagrined Cheon retired in high dudgeon. “What’s ’er matter!” he said
indignantly. “Him too muchee heavy fellow. S’pose him little fellow me
chuck him all right,” explaining a comical failure with even more
comical explanations. Soon after the retirement of our crestfallen
Cheon, hot cakes were served by a Cheon all rotundity and chuckles once
more, but immediately afterwards, a snort of indignation riveted our
attention on an exceedingly bristling, dignified Cheon, who was glaring
across the enclosure at two of our neighbour’s black-boys, one of whom
was the bearer of a letter, and the other, of a long yellow vegetable-
marrow.
Right up to the house verandah they came, and the letter was presented
to the Maluka, and the marrow to the missus in the presence of Cheon’s
glare and an intense silence; for most of the bush-folk had heard of the
cabbage insult. Cheon had seen to that.
“Hope you will wish me luck while enjoying my little gift,” said the
letter, and mistaking its double meaning, I felt really vexed with our
neighbour, and passing the marrow to Cheon, reflected a little of his
bristling dignity as I said: “This is of no use to any one here, Cheon;
you had better take it away”; and as Cheon accepted it with a grateful
look, those about the verandah, and those without the garden, waited
expectantly.
But there was to be no unseemly rage this time. In dignified silence
Cheon received the marrow—a sinuous yellow insult, and as the homestead
waited he raised it above his head, and stalking majestically from us
towards the finished part of the fence, flung it from him in
contemptuous scorn, adding a satisfied snort as the marrow, striking the
base of a fence post, burst asunder, and the next moment, after a
flashing swoop, he was grovelling under the wires, making frantic
efforts to reach a baby bottle of whisky that had rolled from within the
marrow away beyond the fence. “Cognac!” he gasped, as he struggled, and
then, as shouts greeted his speedy success, he sat up, adding comically:
“My word! Me close up smash him Cognac.” At the thought came his
inevitable laughter, and as he leant against the fence post, surrounded
by the shattered marrow, he sat hopelessly gurgling, and choking, and
shaking, and hugging his bottle, the very picture of a dissolute old
Bacchanalian. (Cheon would have excelled as a rapid change artist). And
as Cheon gurgled, and spluttered, and shook, the homestead rocked with
yells of delight, while Brown of the Bulls rolled and writhed in a
canvas lounge, gasping between his shouts: “Oh, chase him away,
somebody; cover him up. Where did you catch him?”
Finally Cheon scrambled to his feet, and, perspiring and exhausted,
presented the bottle to the Maluka. “My word, me cross fellow!” he said
weakly, and then, bubbling over again at the recollection, he chuckled:
“Close up smash him Cognac all right.” And at the sound of the chuckle
Brown of the Bulls broke out afresh:
“Chase him away!” he yelled. “You’ll kill me between you! I never struck
such a place! Is it a circus or a Wild West Show?”
Gravely the Maluka accepted the bottle, and with the same mock gravity
answered Brown of the Bulls. “It is neither, my man,” he said; “neither
a circus, nor a Wild West Show. This is the land the poets sing about,
the land where dull despair is king.”
Brown of the Bulls naturally wished “some of the poets were about now,”
and Dan, having joined the house party, found a fitting opportunity to
air one of his pet grievances.
“I’ve never done wishing some of them town chaps that write bush yarns
’ud come along and learn a thing or two,” he said. “Most of ’em seem to
think that when we’re not on the drink we’re whipping the cat or
committing suicide.” Rarely had Dan any excuse to offer for those “town
chaps,” who, without troubling to learn “a thing or two,” first, depict
the bush as a pandemonium of drunken orgies, painted women, low revenge,
remorse, and suicide; but being in a more magnanimous mood than usual,
as the men-folk flocked towards the Quarters he waited behind to add,
unconscious of any irony: “Of course, seeing it’s what they’re used to
in town, you can’t expect ’em to know any better.”
Then in the Quarters “Luck to our neighbour” was the toast—“luck,” and
the hope that all his ventures might be as successfully carried through
as his practical joke. After that the Maluka gravely proposed “Cheon,”
and Cheon instantly became statuesque and dignified, to the further
diversion of Brown of the Bulls—gravely accepting a thimbleful for
himself, and, as gravely, drinking his own health, the Maluka just as
gravely “clinking glasses” with him. And from that day to this when
Cheon wishes to place the Maluka on a fitting pedestal, he ends his
long, long tale with a triumphant: “Boss bin knock glass longa me one
time.”
Happy Dick and Peter filled in time for the Quarters until sundown, when
Cheon announced supper there with an inspired call of “Cognac!” And
then, as if to prove that we are not always on the drink, or “whipping
the cat, or committing suicide,” that we can love and live for others
besides self, Neaves’ mate came down from the little rise beyond the
slip-rails, where he had spent his day carving a headstone out of a
rough slab of wood that now stood at the head of our sick traveller’s
grave.
Not always on the drink, or whipping the cat, or committing suicide, but
too often at the Parting of the Ways, for within another twelve hours
the travellers, Happy Dick, the Line Party, Neaves’ mate, Brown of the
Bulls, and Mac, had all gone or were going their ways, leaving us to go
ours—Brown back to hold his bulls at the Red Lilies until further
showers should open up all roads, and Mac to “pick up Tam.” But in the
meantime Dan had become Showman of the Showers.
“See anything?” he asked, soon after sun-up, waving his hands towards
the northern slip-rails, as we stood at the head of the thoroughfare
speeding our parting guests; and then he drew attention to the faintest
greenish tinge throughout the homestead enclosure—such a clean-washed-
looking enclosure now.
“That’s going to be grass soon,” he said, and, the sun coming out with
renewed vigour after another shower, by midday he had gathered a handful
of tiny blades half an inch in length with a chuckling “What did I tell
you?”
By the next midday, grass, inches tall, was rippling all around the
homestead in the now prevalent northwest breeze, and Dan was preparing
for a trip out-bush to see where the showers had fallen, and Mac and Tam
coming in as he went out, Mac greeted us with a jocular: “The flats get
greener every year about the Elsey.”
“Indeed!” we said, and Mac, overcome with confusion, spluttered an
apology: “Oh, I say! Look here! I didn’t mean to hit off at the missus,
you know!” and then catching the twinkle in Tam’s eyes, stopped short,
and with a characteristic shrug “reckoned he was making a fair mess of
things.”
Mac would never be other than our impetuous brither Scot, distinct from
all other men, for the bush never robs her children of their
individuality. In some mysterious way she clean-cuts out the personality
of each of them, and keeps it sharply clean-cut; and just as Mac stood
apart from all men, so Tam also stood apart, the quiet self-reliant man,
though, we had seen among the horses, for that was the real man; and as
Mac built castles, and made calculations, Tam put his shoulder to the
drudgery, and before Mac quite knew what had happened, he was hauling
logs and laying foundations for a brumby trap in the south-east country,
while Bertie’s Nellie found herself obliged to divide her attention
between the homestead and the brumby camp.
As Mac hauled and drudged, the melons paid their first dividend; half-
past eleven four weeks drew near; “Just-So Stories” did all they could,
and Dan coming in found the Quiet Stockman away back in the days of old,
deep in a simply written volume of Scottish history.
Dan had great news of the showers, but had to find other audience than
Jack, for he was away in a world all his own, and, bent over the little
volume, was standing shoulder to shoulder with his Scottish fathers,
fighting with them for his nation. All evening he followed where they
led, enduring and suffering, and mourning with them and rejoicing over
their final victory with a ringing “You can’t beat the Scots,” as the
little volume, coming to with a bang, roused the Quarters at midnight.
“You can’t beat the Scots, missus!” he repeated, coming over in the
morning for “more of that sort,” all unconscious how true he was to
type, as he stood there, flushed with the victories of his forefathers,
a strong, young Scot, with a newly conquered world of his own at his
feet.
As we hunted for “more of that sort,” through a medley of odds and ends,
the Quiet Stockman scanned titles and dipped here and there into unknown
worlds, and Dan coming by, stared open-eyed.
“You don’t say he’s got the whole mob mouthed and reined and schooled in
all the paces?” he gasped; but Jack put aside the word of praise.
“There’s writing and spelling yet,” he said, and Dan, with his interest
in booklearning reviving, watched the square chin setting squarer, and
was bewildered. “Seems to have struck a mob of brumbies,” he commented.
But before Jack could “get properly going” with the brumbies, two
travellers rode into the homestead, supporting between them a third
rider, a man picked up off the track delirious with fever, and foodless;
and at the sight of his ghastly face our hearts stood still with fear.
But the man was one of the Scots another Mac of the race that loves a
good fight, and his plucky heart stood by him so well that within
twenty-four hours he was Iying contentedly in the shade of the Quarters,
looking on, while the homestead shared the Fizzer’s welcome with Mac and
Tam and a traveller or two.
Out of the south came the Fizzer, lopping once more in his saddle, with
the year’s dry stages behind him, and the set lines all gone from his
shoulders, shouting as he came: “Hullo! What ho! Here’s a crowd of us!”
but on his return trip the Fizzer was a man of leisure, and we had to
wait for news until his camp was fixed up.
“Now for it!” he shouted, at last joining the company, and Mac felt the
time was ripe for his jocular greeting and, ogling the Fizzer, noticed
that “The flats get greener every year about the Elsey.”
But the Fizzer was a dangerous subject to joke with. “So I’ve noticed,”
he shouted as, improving on Mac’s ogle, he singled him out from the
company, then dropping his voice to an insinuating drawl he challenged
him to have a deal.
Instantly the Sanguine Scot became a Canny Scot, for Mac prided himself
on a horse-deal. And as no one had yet got the better of the Fizzer the
company gathered round to enjoy itself.
“A swop,” suggested the Fizzer, and Mac agreeing with a “Right ho!” a
preliminary hand-shake was exchanged before “getting to business”; and
then, as each made a great presence of mentally reviewing his team, each
eyed the other with the shrewdness of a fighting cock.
“My brown mare!” Mac offered at last, and knowing the staunch little
beast, the homestead wondered what Mac had up his sleeve.
We explained our suspicions in asides to the travellers, but the Fizzer
seemed taken by surprise. “By George!” he said. “She’s a stunner! I’ve
nothing fit to put near her excepting that upstanding chestnut down
there.”
The chestnut was standing near the creek-crossing, and every one knowing
him well, and sure of that “something” up Mac’s sleeve, feared for the
Fizzer as Mac’s hand came out with a “Done!” and the Fizzer gripped it
with a clinching “Right ho!”
Naturally we waited for the denouement, and the Fizzer appearing
unsuspicious and well-pleased with the deal, we turned our attention to
the Sanguine Scot.
Mac felt the unspoken flattery, and with an introductory cough, and a
great show of indifference, said: “By the way! Perhaps I should have
mentioned it, but the brown mare’s down with the puffs since the
showers,” and looked around the company for approval.
But the Fizzer was filling the homestead with shoutings: “Don’t
apologise,” he yelled. “That’s nothing! The chestnut’s just broken his
leg; can’t think how he got here. This’ll save me the trouble of
shooting him.” Then dropping back to that chuckling drawl, and re-
assuming the ogle, he added:
“The—flats—get—greener—every—year—about—the Elsey,” and with a good-
humoured laugh Mac asked if “any other gentleman felt on for a swop.”
Naturally, for a while the conversation was all of horse deals, until,
Happy Dick coming in, it turned as naturally to dog-fights as Peter and
Brown stalked aggressively about the thoroughfare.
Daily we hinted to Happy Dick that Peter’s welcome was wearing out, and
daily Happy Dick assured us that he “couldn’t keep him away nohow.” But
then Happy Dick’s efforts to keep him away were peculiar, taking the
form of monologues as Peter trotted beside him towards the
homestead—reiterations of:
“We’re not the sort to say nuff, are we, Peter? We’ll never say die,
will we, Peter? We’ll win if we don’t lose, won’t we, Peter?” Adding,
after his arrival at the homestead, a subdued “S—SS-s, go it, Peter!”
whenever Brown appeared in the thoroughfare.
But the homestead’s hour of triumph was at hand, for as the afternoon
wore on, Happy Dick found the very best told recital a poor substitute
for the real thing, and thirsting for a further “Peter’s latest,”
hissed: “S—s—ss, go it, Peter!” once too often. For, well, soon
afterwards—figuratively speaking—Peter was carried off the field on a
stretcher.
True, Brown had only one sound leg left to stand on, but by propping the
other three carefully against it, he managed to cut a fairly triumphant
figure. But Brown’s victory was not to be all advantage to the
homestead, for never again were we to hear “Peter’s latest.”
“Can’t beat the Elsey for a good dog-fight! Can you, Peter?” the Fizzer
chuckled, as Peter lay licking his wounds at Happy Dick’s feet; but the
Quarters, feeling the pleasantry ill-timed, delicately led the
conversation to cribbage, and at sun-up next morning Happy Dick “did a
get” to his work, with bulging pockets, leaving the Fizzer packing up
and declaring that “half a day at the Elsey gave a man a fresh start.”
But Dan also was packing up—a “duplicate” brought in by the Fizzer
having necessitated his presence in Darwin, and as he packed up he
assured us he would be back in time for the Christmas celebrations, even
if he had to swim for it but before he left he paid a farewell visit to
the Christmas dinner. “In case of accidents,” he explained, “mightn’t
see it again. Looks like another case of one apiece,” he added,
surveying with interest the plumpness of six young pullets Cheon was
cherishing under a coop.
“Must have pullet longa Clisymus,” Cheon had said, and all readily
agreeing, “Of course!” he had added “must have really good Clisymus”;
and another hearty “Of course” convincing him we were at one with him in
the matter of Christmas, he entered into details.
“Must have big poodinn, and almond, and Clisymus cake, and mince pie,”
he chuckled, and then after confiding to us that he had heard of the
prospective glories of a Christmas dinner at the Pine Creek “Pub.,” the
heathen among us urged us to do honour to the Christian festival.
“Must have top-fellow Clisymus longa Elsey,” he said, and even more
heartily we agreed, “of course,” giving Cheon carte blanche to order
everything as he wished us to have it. “We were there to command,” we
assured him; and accepting our services, Cheon opened the ball by
sending the Dandy in to the Katherine on a flying visit to do a little
shopping, and, pending the Dandy’s return we sat down and made plans.
The House and the Quarters should join forces that day, Cheon suggested,
and dine under the eastern verandah “No good two-fellow dinner longa
Clisymus,” he said. And the blacks, too, must be regaled in their humpy.
“Must have Vealer longa black fellow Clisymus,” Cheon ordered, and
Jack’s services being bespoken for Christmas Eve, to “round up a
Vealer,” it was decided to add a haunch of “Vealer” to our menu as a
trump card—Vealers being rarities at Pine Creek. Our only regret was
that we lived too far from civilisation to secure a ham. Pine Creek
would certainly have a ham; but we had a Vealer and faith in Cheon, and
waited expectantly for the Dandy, sure the Elsey would “come out top-
fellow.”
And as we waited for the Dandy, the Line Party moved on to our northern
boundary, taking with it possible Christmas guests; the Fizzer came in
and went on, to face a “merry Christmas with damper and beef served in
style on a pack-bag,” also regretting empty mail-bags—the Southern mail
having been delayed en route. Tam and the Sanguine Scot accepted
invitations to the Christmas dinner; and the Wet broke in one terrific
thunderclap, as the heavens, opening, emptied a deluge over us.
In that mighty thunderclap the Wet rushed upon us with a roar of falling
waters, and with them Billy Muck appeared at the house verandah dripping
like a beaver, to claim further credit.
“Well?” he said again, “Me rainmaker, eh?” and the Maluka shouted above
the roar and din:
“You’re the boy for my money, Billy! Keep her going!” and Billy kept her
going to such purpose that by sun-up the billabong was a banker, Cheon
was moving over the face of the earth with the buoyancy of a child’s
balloon, and Billy had five inches of rain to his credit. (So far,
eleven inches was the Territory record for one night). Also the fringe
of birds was back at the billabong, having returned with as little
warning as it had left, and once more its ceaseless chatter became the
undertone of the homestead.
At sun-up Cheon had us in his garden, sure now that Pine Creek could not
possibly outdo us in vegetables and the Dandy coming in with every
commission fulfilled we felt ham was a mere detail.
But Cheon’s cup of happiness was to brim over that day, for after
answering every question hurled at him, the Dandy sang cheerfully: “He
put in his thumb and pulled out a plum,” and dragged forth a ham from
its hiding-place, with a laughing, “What a good boy am I.”
With a swoop Cheon was on it, and the Dandy, trying to regain it, said,
“Here, hold hard! I’ve to present it to the missus with a bow and the
compliments of Mine Host.” But Cheon would not part with it, and so the
missus had the bow and the compliments, and Cheon the ham.
Lovingly he patted it and asked us if there ever was such a ham? or ever
such a wonderful man as Mine Host? or ever such a fortunate woman as the
missus? Had any other woman such a ham or such a friend in need? And
bubbling over with affection for the whole world, he sent Jackeroo off
for mistletoe, and presently the ham, all brave in Christmas finery, was
hanging like a gay wedding-bell in the kitchen doorway. Then the kitchen
had to be decorated, also in mistletoe, to make a fitting setting for
the ham, and after that the fiat went forth. No one need expect either
eggs or cream before “Clisymus”—excepting, of course, the sick Mac—he
must be kept in condition to do justice to our “Clisymus” fare.
What a week it was—all festivities, and meagre fare, and whirring egg-
beaters, and thunderstorms, and downpours, and water-melon dividends,
and daily visits to the vegetable patch; where Happy Dick was assured,
during a flying visit, that we were sure of seven varieties of
vegetables for “Clisymus.”
But alas for human certainty! Even then swarms of grasshoppers were
speeding towards us, and by sundown were with us.
In vain Cheon and the staff, the rejected, Bett-Bett every shadow and
the missus, danced war-dances in the vegetable patch, and chivied and
chased, and flew all ways at once; the grasshoppers had found green
stuff exactly to their liking, and coming in clouds, settled, and
feasted, and flew upwards, and settled back, and feasted, and swept on,
leaving poor Cheon’s heart as barren of hope as the garden was of
vegetables. Nothing remained but pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and Cheon’s
tardy watermelons, and the sight of the glaring blotches of pumpkins
filled Cheon with fury.
“Pumpee-kin for Clisymus!” he raved, kicking furiously at the hideous
wens. Not if he knew it! and going to some stores left in our care by
the Line Party, he openly stole several tins of preserved vegetables.
“Must have vegetable longa Clisymus,” he said, feeling his theft amply
justified by circumstances, but salved his conscience by sending a gift
of eggs to the Line Party as a donation towards its “Clisymus.”
Then finding every one sympathetic, he broached a delicate subject. By
some freak of chance, he said, the missus was the only person who had
succeeded in growing good melons this year, and taking her to the melon
beds, which the grasshoppers had also passed by, he looked longingly at
three great fruits that lay like mossy green boulders among the rich
foliage. “Just chance,” he reiterated, and surely the missus would see
that chance also favoured our “Clisymus.” “A Clisymus without dessert
would be no Clisymus at all,” he continued, pressing each fruit in turn
between loving hands until it squeaked in response. “Him close up ripe,
missus. Him sing out!” he said, translating the squeak.
But the missus appeared strangely inattentive, and in desperation Cheon
humbled himself and apologised handsomely for former scoffings. Not
chance, he said, but genius! Never was there white woman like the
missus! “Him savey all about,” he assured the Maluka. “Him plenty savey
gardin.” Further, she was a woman in a thousand! A woman all China would
bow down to! Worth ninety-one-hundred pounds in any Chinese matrimonial
market. “A valuable asset,” the Maluka murmured.
It was impossible to stand against such flattery. Billy Muck was hastily
consulted, and out of his generous heart voted two of the mossy boulders
to the white folk, keeping only one for “black fellow all about.” “Poor
old Billy!” He was to pay dearly for his leaning to the white folk.
Nothing was amiss now but Dan’s non-appearance; and the egg-beater
whirring merrily on, by Christmas Eve, the Dandy and Jack, coming in
with wild duck for breakfast and the Vealer, found the kitchen full of
triumphs and Cheon wrestling with an immense pudding. “Four dozen egg
sit down,” he chuckled, beating at the mixture. “One bottle port wine,
almond, raisin, all about, more better’n Pine Creek all right”; and the
homestead taking a turn at the beating “for luck,” assured him that it
“knocked spots off Pine Creek.”
“Must have money longa poodin’!” Cheon added, and our wealth lying also
in a cheque book, it was not until after a careful hunt that two
threepenny bits were produced, when one, with a hole in it, went in “for
luck,” and the other followed as an omen for wealth.
The threepenny bits safely in, it took the united efforts of the
homestead to get the pudding into a cloth and thence into a boiler,
while Cheon explained that it would have been larger if only we had had
a larger boiler to hold it. As it was, it had to be boiled out in the
open, away from the buildings, where Cheon had constructed an ingenious
trench to protect the fire from rain and wind.
Four dozen eggs in a pudding necessitates an all-night boiling, and
because of this we offered to share “watches” with Cheon, but were
routed in a body. “We were better in bed,” he said. What would happen to
his dinner if any one’s appetite failed for want of rest? There were too
few of us as it was, and, besides, he would have to stay up all night in
any case, for the mince pies were yet to be made, in addition to brownie
and another plum-pudding for the “boys,” to say nothing of the hop-beer,
which if made too soon would turn with the thunder and if made too late
would not “jump up” in time. He did not add that he would have trusted
no mortal with the care of the fires that night.
He did add, however, that it would be as well to dispatch the Vealer
over night, and that an early move (about fowl-sing-out) would not be
amiss; and, always obedient to Cheon’s will, we all turned in, in good
time, and becoming drowsy, dreamed of “watching” great mobs of Vealers,
with each Vealer endowed with a plum-pudding for a head.